Im a climate refugee

This First Person column is written by Rubaiyat Karim, a Bangladeshi Canadian living in Toronto. This column was originally published in November 2022. For more information about CBCs First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

We stepped through the small opening of our wrought-iron gates onto a small wooden boat. It was large enough to carry us as we rowed through the waters to a nearby shop for some staples. For my eight-year-old gaze, this was an adventure.

People recognize Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, as one of the most densely populated areas of the world. So you are more likely to hear a cacophony of sounds coming from rickshaws, motorcycles, cars, buses, and transport trucks. But on this day, it was the serene splashes of murky, smelly green water with floating bags as my sister and I made the journey through the main streets of the financial district with my grandfather.

He took us out for a joyride and demonstration of the severe impact of climate change. Monsoons occur yearly, but this was unusual. We hadnt left the house for days, and the water had not receded. As a child, I didnt understand the depth of what my grandfather wanted us to understand, but that was likely my first experience of severe weather made stronger and more frequent as a result of climate change.

In hindsight, it foreshadowed how climate change would continue to follow me and in turn, decide wherever I have lived.

For most of my childhood in Bangladesh, I recall a regular stream of visitors from the northwest part of the country where my grandparents were born staying in our multi-generational home in Dhaka. These people were often farmers who depended on the land to grow jute, tea and rice on the rich soil carried down by the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers. But soaring temperatures, melting Himalayan glaciers and rising sea levels meant floods arrived with increasing regularity in our country.

The regular riverbank flooding meant these family friends lost their homes and livelihood all at once. Fortunes changed overnight. They came to the city to work, save money, and rebuild their home. Sometimes they would settle in Dhaka when the riverbanks receded because there was no land to which to return.

Climate change is estimated to displace one in every seven people in Bangladesh by 2050. Bangladesh may lose approximately 11 per cent of its land by then, and up to 18 million people may have to migrate because of sea-level rise alone.

Thats what happened to my grandmothers ancestral home in 1991. The riverbank erosion devoured her brick and mortar home. It saddens me to think she doesnt have a physical marker of our ancestors. Our missing home is a reminder of climate change.

Nowadays, we are known as climate refugees. I dont foresee returning home as my parents did. But in 30 years, what will remain? It saddens me to think of it.

It was the final week of my last year at university. I rushed to campus to take an exam, half wishing the university would cancel them due to the wildfires.

Does anyone ever feel prepared for these things? I wondered. I glanced over my shoulders to ensure I had locked my car with the steering wheel lock. I was feeling somewhat absent-minded. The skies were overcast. Ash, high winds, and smoke from the dry bush fires in and around the San Fernando Valley covered the horizon. A post-apocalyptic scene.

When I was 14, I immigrated to Los Angeles with my parents. My father, a trained engineer, wanted a fresh start away from Bangladeshs economic and political turmoil. Climate change fuelled the unrest in many ways land erosion meant the loss of livelihoods, rapid urbanization, lack of economic opportunities and poverty.

While we fled rising waters in Bangladesh, here in California, I faced a new form of climate change: wildfires.

Drought, wildfires and extreme weather sum up southern California chaparral more than the cinematic sand, surf and sunset. Fires were natural to California, but today, they burn regularly. Fifteen of the 20 largest fires in California history have taken place since 2000, and scientists say climate change is the cause of these events. Warmer temperatures rob plants and trees of more water, making them the perfect dry fuel to keep fires raging.

In 2002, the air quality on campus and traffic conditions in the valley were so horrid that my mothers asthma flared up, and she stayed home from work. Stay indoors. Close all doors and windows. Place a damp cloth over your nose if you leave home. I recall the myriad instructions to protect ourselves. It always felt like I wasnt doing enough, that somehow the issue of climate change was a personal failure for example, maybe we hadnt cleared enough dry bush around our property.

After years of working as a social worker in California with immigrant communities that kept getting battered by American policies, I wanted a fresh start. I also wanted to get away from the annual wildfires. So I arrived in Toronto in 2008, and it has been my home ever since.

When the reports of the devastating heat wave sweeping South Asia in May hit my newsfeeds, I anxiously called my mother in Dhaka. My parents had returned to Bangladesh as empty nesters and started a green energy company focused on installing solar panels and LED lights in large buildings.

My mother has asthma and recounted the poor air quality and stifling heat wave, which she hoped would be dampened by the coming monsoon rains. That season, the temperature exceeded 40 C, and she said it was hard to breathe. She had been nauseous for days.

Are you staying hydrated? I asked.

She told me they had lost power, so the generator was on to keep the AC unit going, but it still wasnt enough.

Fear. Guilt. Worry. All these emotions crossed my mind as we continued to chat. The polarity of our experiences at that moment struck me. In Toronto, I have relative control over how I experience the environment. If the heat on my patio gets unbearable, I could step inside and crank up the AC. I rarely contend with power outages. But the privileges afforded me in Toronto were not the ones my parents endured in Dhaka.

Im so conscious of climate change and how it affects my family that, naturally, it also informs many of my decisions. How could it not? I get fresh local produce from a program that supports Ontario farmers because I know my grandparents and friends pain at losing their land in Bangladesh. I compost and grow what my partner calls a veritable rainforest because I do not want to waste and use more resources than I need.

My partner and I chose not to have children because we didnt want to bring another human into this world in crisis.

In anticipation of the return to the workplace once more people were vaccinated against COVID-19, we moved closer to work and wanted to cycle instead of drive. We use public transit and plan to buy an electric vehicle.

As a teacher, I have conversations with my students about who is most impacted by climate change and environmental racism.

Wealthier nations such as Canada are responsible for most greenhouse gas emissions, but developing countries experience the harsher impacts of the climate crisis. The sheer inequity of the climate crisis fuels my guilt my privileged status as a Canadian protects me.

I try to change the things that are within my control, small though they might feel, because theres not much I can do for my family back in Bangladesh. Im happy my parents have the choice to return home to Dhaka. Its something they wanted to do for a long time. For myself, I dont have the choice, because I dont believe that home will exist in the next 30 years. Im a climate refugee, but I hope others can avoid this fate.

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